Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

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Figure 1. FTIR spectrum of paint sample (n o. 17) takenfrol11 blue if the sky area. Hydrocarbon

stretch bands at 2923 CI11 -1 and 2851 cm-I• as well as the hydrocarbon bend at 1404 cm-I, indicate

the presence of an oi/ medium. The band at 2342 cm -I is characteristic fo r natural ultramarine.

the use of a drying oil. The palmitic:stearic acids ratios of the samples suggest

that the sky was executed in walnut oil or in a mixture of walnut and linseed

oils in contrast to other areas of the painting, in which the faster drying, but

more yellowing, linseed oil was used.

Painting

The thinness and relatively simple structure of the paint layers are in accor­

dance with what seems to have been Titian's practice around the 1550s.

Examination of the cross sections shows that most of the paint was fairly

directly and thinly applied, as opposed to the technique he used in his later

paintings. In the fo reword to Marco Boschini's Ricche Minere della Pittura Ve­

neziana (1664), an authoritative and contemporary description is given by

Palma Giovane of the manner in which Titian gave fo rm to the paintings he

made after the 1550s (6):

He used to sketch in his pictures with a great mass if colours, which served

as a base for the compositions he then had to construct. [The compositions

wereJformed with bold strokes made with brushes laden with colours, some­

times with a pure red earth, which he used for a middle tone, and at other

times of white lead; and with the same brush tinted with red, black and

yellow he formed an accent; and thus he made the promise if a figure

appear in four strokes .... Having constructed these precious foundations

he used to turn his pictures to the wall and leave them without looking at

them, sometimes for several months. When he wanted to apply his brush

again ... he would treat his picture like a good surgeon would his patient,

reducing if necessary some swelling or excess of flesh, straightening an arm

if the bone structure was not exactly right .... After he had done this,

while the picture was drying, he would turn his hand to another and work

on it the same way. Thus he gradually covered those quintessential forms

with living flesh, bringing them by many stages to a state in which they

lacked only the breath of life .... In the last stages he painted more with

his fingers than with his brushes.

This process could involve not just two or three weeks but, with several steps

and with long interruptions, could continue fo r months, even years, resulting

in a painting with several paint layers.

The process, as described by Palma Giovane, is distinctly different from the

earlier manner in which Titian painted. This difference was already noticed

by Vasari in 1566:

Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice